My initial draft of anything is a series of flowing fragments. They are ideas, images, thoughts and feelings. They are connected by an overarching concept, but that would be unclear to anyone reading them at this stage. This writing is what I’m most in love with. I have never felt freer than when I am… Continue reading The Writing and The Writing
Category: Process
Glue in the Head
Stuck. Looking at the manuscript. Not in detail, just the mass of it flat on the table. 74 pages of Calibri Regular, unevenly spaced. Sheets of notes torn up and spliced in with sticky tape. Hand-written jots in the margins, sometimes spanning pages, the only indication of place given by asterisks and little numbers in… Continue reading Glue in the Head
![Hybrid [Manifesto]](https://crdudleycom.files.wordpress.com/2021/09/20210518_200715.jpg?w=675)
Hybrid [Manifesto]
1. Writing about a writer is cliché. 2. Too many novels start with a journey. 3. Dreams and flashbacks are lazy plot devices. 4. Elaborate prose presented as monologue is self-indulgent. 5. Philosophy should be hidden, not overt. 6. So fucking what. 7. You fall out of one overused trope and into another. 8. You… Continue reading Hybrid [Manifesto]
Journal Sequence #3
Hide from the plain in the abstract. Hide from the line in the circle. Follow artistic whims. Portraits of the lost. Rich, lyrical texture. Live on the blade. Be honest with yourself. Who are you trying to please? The return of the muse. Bloodied and sick and raw and reaching. A disgusting attraction. Whatever works.… Continue reading Journal Sequence #3
Dreaming Motifs
In my dreams, I find motifs from the day that follows just as frequently as those from the days that have passed. It keeps me remembering that time is not quite the straight line we want it to be. I use the word motif because to me it’s the theme, the inference, of dream events… Continue reading Dreaming Motifs
Journal Sequence #1
In my blanket fort. If I go out there, I’ll have to be a person. Being a person now means being a machine, conforming to defined boundaries of behavior. My state is altered. Stretched beyond. Somewhat Ballardian. Climate, extreme heat. Jungian figures. A gradual falling apart. Becoming part of a world that will destroy us.… Continue reading Journal Sequence #1
Shifting Self/Problem of Time when Writing
The self is not a stable thing. Sure, there’s a sense of continuity, but our mindset, attitude and mood are constantly shifting; so much so, they can be barely recognisable from the inside given the space of a few days. If I look to my journal, some entries are verbose, some are whimsical, some are… Continue reading Shifting Self/Problem of Time when Writing
Automatic Fiction
I wanted to talk a bit about the term ‘automatic fiction’, which I sometimes use to describe my flash pieces, because I think it is easily confused with other kinds of writing. The first thing people usually think of is ‘automatic writing‘, which infers the channeling of spirits. This would be done as part of… Continue reading Automatic Fiction
Writing About Nothing
I keep coming back to the opening line of Patti Smith’s M Train: “It’s not so easy writing about nothing”. It spins round and around in my head like a mantra: it has something to teach me. One of the things it brings to mind is that it’s actually quite easy to write about nothing,… Continue reading Writing About Nothing
C.R. Dudley 